Love, Life & Loss

While
honoring the finest traditions of the University of Michigan to
challenge the present and enrich the future, the Michigan Men's Glee
Club takes a bold step forward to engage audiences in thinking deeper
about race and violence - among the most polarizing issues facing our
country throughout its history.

These men are the subjects of a powerful multi-movement work by
up-and-coming Atlanta-based composer Joel Thompson titled “Seven Last
Words of the Unarmed.”

The song was recently premiered by the University of Michigan Men’s
Glee Club under the direction of Eugene Rogers, associate director of
choirs and professor of conducting at the University of Michigan School
of Music, Theatre & Dance.

Known for selecting songs that promote musical “ubuntu”—a peace
concept widely popularized by late South African president Nelson
Mandela—Rogers says that “Seven Last Words” challenged students to allow
themselves to see the world through the eyes of others.

“Great art should do more than entertain—great art should provoke
thought and critical discourse, engage the audience, and build a safe,
strong sense of community through the exploration of important issues,”
Rogers said. “This is why I choose to include repertoire in my
programming that focuses on themes surrounding social justice.”

Thompson, who met Rogers while workshopping his composition in 2015,
was initially inspired by Iranian-American artist Shirin Barghi’s
#lastwords project. From more than a dozen of Barghi’s illustrations
containing the dying words of unarmed black men shot and killed by
authority figures, Thompson chose seven statements that aligned most
closely with the classical structure of Joseph Haydn’s “Seven Last Words
of Christ on the Cross.”

“I wanted to process my personal feelings about being a young black
man in this very racially tense time we’re living in,” Thompson said. “I
also wanted to figure out a universal way to remember these men who had
lost their lives too soon.”

The song’s seven movements represent the last words of seven different men:

“Why do you have your guns out?” – Kenneth Chamberlain, 66

“What are you following me for?” – Trayvon Martin, 16

“Mom, I’m going to college.” – Amadou Diallo, 23

“I don’t have a gun. Stop shooting.” – Michael Brown, 18

“You shot me! You shot me!” – Oscar Grant, 22

“It’s not real.” – John Crawford, 22

“I can’t breathe.” – Eric Garner, 43

Each movement is distinctly different, borrowing influences from
musical theater, Bach, Brahms, and even aleatoric music—a style of music
where an element of the composition is left to the spontaneity of the
performers, which can be heard as students repeat Oscar Grant’s last
words “You shot me! You shot me!” in Movement V.

The group has performed the piece, paired with Rogers’ arrangement of
“Glory” from the film “Selma,” several times as part of this year’s
roster of songs that convey themes of “love, life, and loss,” and “hope
in the midst of struggle.”

As part of his teaching process, Rogers had his students—who
represent various ages, races, religions, cultures and socioeconomic
backgrounds—write essays about their reactions to the piece.

The responses were varied. For African-American students, the
experience presented a personal struggle. Other students expressed
feelings of guilt, hesitation or fear of the polarization of the subject
matter.

“The deaths of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown had a great impact on
me and how I view my own mortality,” wrote Wesley Fields, U-M SMTD
student. “I was unsure if I could handle the emotional weight of
conveying such a powerful message that was very much tied to my own
racial identity. I spent many early rehearsals holding back tears and
blocking myself off from the piece. Consequently, I was too afraid to
audition to be a soloist in the third movement.”

Ryan Carrell, U-M engineering student and glee club president,
reflected on how performing the work made him rethink the controversial
news reports.

“Every time I heard ‘Mom, I’m going to college,’ I felt a pang of
guilt,” he wrote. “I had fallen prey to a common byproduct of media
coverage. I had based my personal judgments on a single instance in the
lives of these men. Like many others, I had come to conclusions from
sound bites and 140-character tweets. These seven quotes, free from
commentary and forensic file re-enactments, offered a new story. There
was human life in this story. I chose to embrace the work as a
remembrance of lost possibilities.”

Regardless of their differences, they all rallied around one key theme.

“I think that these songs made us all realize that this is not just a
black issue or a white issue,” said Daniel Passino, U-M SMTD student,
lead “Glory” soloist and a contestant on NBC’s reality singing show The
Voice. “We all agree that every human life is valuable.”

“I am really proud of the way that our students opened themselves up
to this experience,” Rogers said. “I was very conflicted about
presenting this piece to them because I did not want it to be
misinterpreted purely as a political statement. In the end, we practiced
‘ubuntu’—we listened to each other, and we grew together through song.”

The U-M Men’s Glee Club is currently preparing for their first tour
of South Africa in the group’s 156-year history, where they will perform
these songs for audiences in Potechefstroom, Johannesburg and Pretoria.

Before their departure, they will premiere a 30-minute documentary
about the song at 7:30 p.m. April 27 in Angell Hall’s Auditorium A. The
screening will be followed by a Q&A with Dr. Eugene Rogers, SMTD
Dean Aaron Dworkin and members of the U-M Men’s Glee Club.The screening
is free and open to the public.

“Seven Last Words of the Unarmed” and “Glory” will be available on
iTunes, CD Baby, Spotify, Apple Music and all other streaming outlets on
April 22.